at
the names they bear are not Roman but those of the ruling families of
other Italian cities.

That the sixteenth century should have produced the most palatial
residences ever inhabited by prelates was but a natural outcome of the
conditions then existing. The society of Rome was a hierarchical
aristocracy made up of the younger sons of every powerful and ambitious
family of Italy, and the red hat was so greatly desired not for the
honour or emoluments of the cardinalcy _per se_ but because it was a
step to the papacy.

"To an Italian," says Alfred Austin, "it must seem a reproach never to
have had a pope in the family, and you will with difficulty find a villa
of any pretension, certainly not in Frascati, where memorial tassels and
tiara carven in stone over porch and doorway do not attest pontifical
kinship."

The young cardinal's first move in the game which he was to play was at
all expense to create an impression, and if, as in the case of Ippolito
d'Este, he had no benevolent uncle in St. Peter's chair to guide his
career, the parental coffers were drawn upon recklessly and the cadet of
the great house led a more extravagant life in his Roman villa than the
duke his elder brother in his provincial court. The object of his
ambition once attained the new Pope unscrupulously enriched his family,
and endeavoured to make his office hereditary by elevating his favourite
nephew to the cardinalcy, and endowing this future candidate for the
papacy with means from the revenues of the Church to purchase the votes
of his rivals. This is the constantly reiterated history of the builders
of the palaces and villas of Rome.

Sixtus IV. made the fortunes of his numerous de la Rovere and Riario
nephews,--one of whom, Pietro, Cardinal of San Sisto, for whom Bramante
built the Cancellaria Palace, set the pace for his comrades of the
Sacred College by squandering in two years the enormous sum of
$2,800,000. Cardinal Raphael Riario of the next generation began the
most beautiful of all villas, Lante, which three other cardinals
subsequently perfected.

Leo X. after his election as pope, proved to be a greater spendthrift
than Sixtus IV., for he not only repaired the broken fortunes of the
Medici but eclipsed his father as a patron of art, making the erection
of monumental buildings and the collection of objects of art a mania
among all men of wealth and culture. Cardinal Giulio (afterwards
Clement VII.) in the Villa Madama, an